The songline of the surfers…

by Bonnie Pockley

‘Only those who brave its dangers…’

With thanks to Grant and John Bolton.

My daughter was born still. Unmoving. It took a team of people and 7 minutes for her to cough up the last of the blood she’d drowned in and cry out into the new world that was now her own. Retrospectively it made sense that she was afraid of water. She’d scream and kick and wail in terror. She demanded a kind of unforgiving closeness for a twin – sleeping nowhere but on our chests or in our arms. We took it easy with her. Never pushing it but slowly trying to coax some progress. Sleep for me was non-existent. Baths felt like practiced torture.

Then, overnight, everything changed. It was the men who knew what to do. The surfers. These men with their extraordinary bond and kinship – a tribe who lived for the next wave and the sound of the sea. Brothers, yes, and uncles. A gift of Hamish’s family.

At 5 months old, they took the twins and cradled them into the water. ‘It’s a reflex,’ they reassured me, ‘Blow on a baby’s face and they’ll hold their breath under water.’ So gently, ever gently, they took them under – a quiet act of initiation and in it, the songline of her recovery.

The Secret of the Sea:

‘Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me As I gaze upon the sea! All the old romantic legends, All my dreams, come back to me.

Sails of silk and ropes of sandal, Such as gleam in ancient lore; And the singing of the sailors, And the answer from the shore!

Most of all, the Spanish ballad Haunts me oft, and tarries long, Of the noble Count Arnaldos And the sailor’s mystic song.

Like the long waves on a sea-beach, Where the sand as silver shines, With a soft, monotonous cadence, Flow its unrhymed lyric lines;–

Telling how the Count Arnaldos, With his hawk upon his hand, Saw a fair and stately galley, Steering onward to the land;–

How he heard the ancient helmsman Chant a song so wild and clear, That the sailing sea-bird slowly Poised upon the mast to hear,

Till his soul was full of longing, And he cried, with impulse strong,– “Helmsman! for the love of heaven, Teach me, too, that wondrous song!”

“Wouldst thou,”–so the helmsman answered, “Learn the secret of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers Comprehend its mystery!”

In each sail that skims the horizon, In each landward-blowing breeze, I behold that stately galley, Hear those mournful melodies;

Till my soul is full of longing For the secret of the sea, And the heart of the great ocean Sends a thrilling pulse through me.’